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Helping friend upgrade gamer PC.. again lol


Brutality

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So yeah.. apparently my mate is having fps lag when he plays WoW at highest graphics at 1920x1080... and he doesn't like that, so he wants to upgrade his PC, and he told me to figure out what to do..

and yeah well, then I go here :P

 

So these are his specs

MBD: Gigabyte EP43-S3L socket LGA775 1600MHz FSB

CPU: Intel Core2Quad Q9550 @ 2.83GHz w/ stock cooler

GPU: Gigabyte GV N470SO-13I

PSU: Cooler Master GX RS-650-ACAA-E3 PSU

RAM: 4x 2048MB Kingston HyperX PC2-6400 800Mhz DDR2 (6-6-6-18)

HDD: Samsung SpinPoint F1 Desktop Class HD753LJ 750 GB

MON: Samsung SyncMaster P2270 21.5 inch

CAS: A+ CS-188A Miditower Deluxe LowNoise Black

OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit

Logitech G7, G19, G35 or Z-2300 sound system (2.1 200watt)

 

Prolly some less-usable information but I didn't leave anything out...

 

What do you guys suggest?

 

Please ask if additional information is required.

 

Cheers Brutality

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Well first off, I cant imagine why hes lagging... that quad-core and GTX470 should cover anything WoW these days... Make sure he has the latest drivers installed for his GPU.

 

HEre is what i recommend doing:

 

1) Buy Aftermarket Heatsink - Overclock CPU to 3.5~ish Ghz, should be easily accomplished on a Q9550. You could go further but i think 3.5 would be a good balance between performance and time required to make stable.

 

2) Buy SSD, MUST be 100+ GB. Install Windows and what not as well as WoW on the SSD. The SSD seriously needs to be 100gb+(such as a 120gb sandforce drive, from Corsair or Mushkin, good brands i own one from both) WoW with the WotLK was like a 20GB game so i imagine now with the newest xpac its even larger. So Windows is 20GB, WoW is prolly 30GB now... 20 + 30 = 50GB!!! So you only have 1 game and windows on the SSD and if at all possible you want to keep SSD's below 80% capacity for best performance.

 

I would also recommend getting another GTX470 to use in SLI. But it doesnt look like his board has another PCI-e x16 slot so i guess thats a no go on that. I think between Overclocking the CPU and maybe the GPU. That he would be good to go again. SSD's make a world of difference in load times, but not really in FPS. But i still cant believe WoW is giving a 470 trouble. It used to play smooth as butter on the highest settings on my HD 5770, which is why i believe something else may be causing the lag. Maybe its just time for a good ole fashioned Reformat and fresh install of windows?

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couldn't you just replace the video card and save a ton? WoW is not very demanding

 

What video card would you recommend?

 

I can run WoW with onboard graphics on mostly high settings

exactly when is the game lagging? he needs to check his ping first

 

I'm talking about fps below 23 (that's what we call fps lag :P because the frames lag, not the game - when the game lags we just call it lag, i.e. high ms)

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I agree, he doesn't need to upgrade to play WoW. I suggest troubleshooting and fixing any existing issues, then overclocking first, before starting to upgrade and replace components.

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Well first off, I cant imagine why hes lagging... that quad-core and GTX470 should cover anything WoW these days... Make sure he has the latest drivers installed for his GPU.

 

HEre is what i recommend doing:

 

1) Buy Aftermarket Heatsink - Overclock CPU to 3.5~ish Ghz, should be easily accomplished on a Q9550. You could go further but i think 3.5 would be a good balance between performance and time required to make stable.

 

2) Buy SSD, MUST be 100+ GB. Install Windows and what not as well as WoW on the SSD. The SSD seriously needs to be 100gb+(such as a 120gb sandforce drive, from Corsair or Mushkin, good brands i own one from both) WoW with the WotLK was like a 20GB game so i imagine now with the newest xpac its even larger. So Windows is 20GB, WoW is prolly 30GB now... 20 + 30 = 50GB!!! So you only have 1 game and windows on the SSD and if at all possible you want to keep SSD's below 80% capacity for best performance.

 

I would also recommend getting another GTX470 to use in SLI. But it doesnt look like his board has another PCI-e x16 slot so i guess thats a no go on that. I think between Overclocking the CPU and maybe the GPU. That he would be good to go again. SSD's make a world of difference in load times, but not really in FPS. But i still cant believe WoW is giving a 470 trouble. It used to play smooth as butter on the highest settings on my HD 5770, which is why i believe something else may be causing the lag. Maybe its just time for a good ole fashioned Reformat and fresh install of windows?

 

He doesn't care about load times, so he won't buy an SSD

 

He recently formatted, so I guess he just needs a new GPU (at least)..

 

Is there any GPU you could recommend?

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I agree, he doesn't need to upgrade to play WoW. I suggest troubleshooting and fixing any existing issues, then overclocking first, before starting to upgrade and repalce components.

 

Oh, okay, so he's gonna need an aftermarket heatsink.. Is there any you would recommend?

 

PS. hard to keep up with responds lol.. but that's great :P

 

EDIT:

 

Note that he can play WoW, but not in Ultra graphics settings, and he's a graphic enthusiast ;)

Edited by Brutality

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I don't believe you

there is no way in hell you are getting 23FPS out in the field with a GTX470 unless it is broken or your CPU is being loaded

I think you are getting dalaran lag or whatever they call it now

it is totally related to your ping and how many characters are loading on your screen at once

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Whatever CPU Heatsink he can fit in his case and how much he wants to spend. If he decides to upgrade, just make sure he gets and keeps all the backplates along with it, so he can re-use the heatsink if he upgrades his CPU.

 

If he reformatted and re-installed his OS, make sure he updated all his drivers, especially his graphics, sound, network, and SATA. In the Nvidia Control Panel, he can also tweak his settings, along with overclocking a bit using MSI Afterburner.

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I don't believe you

there is no way in hell you are getting 23FPS out in the field with a GTX470 unless it is broken or your CPU is being loaded

I think you are getting dalaran lag or whatever they call it now

it is totally related to your ping and how many characters are loading on your screen at once

 

In the field his fps is fine, but during raids it goes laggy. But I don't see how the ping is related to your fps???

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